German grammar

The grammar of the German language is quite similar to that of the other Germanic languages. Although some features of German grammar, such as the formation of some of the verb forms, resemble those of English, German grammar differs from that of English in that it has, among other things, cases and gender in nouns and a strict verb-second word order in main clauses.

German has retained many of the grammatical distinctions that some Germanic languages have lost in whole or in part. There are three genders and four cases, and verbs are conjugated for person and number. Accordingly, German has more inflections than English, and uses more suffixes. For example, in comparison to the -s added to third-person singular present-tense verbs in English, most German verbs employ four different suffixes for the conjugation of present-tense verbs, namely -e for the first-person singular, -st for the informal second-person singular, -t for the third-person singular and for the informal second-person plural, and -en for the first- and third-person plural, as well as for the formal second-person singular/plural.

Owing to the gender and case distinctions, the articles have more possible forms. In addition, some prepositions combine with some of the articles.

Numerals are similar to other Germanic languages. Unlike modern English, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese, units are placed before tens as in Early Modern English, Danish, Dutch, Yiddish and Frisian.

Nouns[edit]

Gender[edit]

Students of German are often advised to learn German nouns with their accompanying definite article, as the definite article of a German noun corresponds to the gender of the noun. However, the meaning or form, especially the ending, of a noun can be used to recognize 80% of noun genders.^[1] For instance, nouns ending in the suffixes -heit, -keit, -ung, -schaft or -tät are always feminine.^[2]

Case [edit]

Articles[edit]

Adjectives[edit]

Declension of adjectives[edit]

Pronouns[edit]

Adverbial phrases[edit]

Verbs[edit]

Separable verbs[edit]

Prepositions[edit]

Prepositions are designed to give some direction, location, intensity, etc. to a sentence. The way such is indicated in German may be different from the way it would be in English.

The following chart shows the cases associated with several prepositions in common usage.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Accusative	Dative	Genitive	Accusative or dative
bis	aus	anstatt*	an
durch	außer	statt*	auf
entlang***	bei	außerhalb	hinter
für	dank**	innerhalb	in
gegen	gegenüber	jenseits	neben
je	gemäß**	diesseits	über
ohne	laut**	seitens	unter
um	mit	während*	vor
wider	nach	wegen*	zwischen
	seit	mithilfe
	von	anhand
	zu
	trotz* **

* With the dative in colloquial style and most often with pronouns.
** May take the genitive.
*** As a preposition takes the genitive or a colloquial dative: entlang des Weges (dem Wege) "along the way", but as a postposition it takes the accusative with the same meaning: den Weg entlang.

"Unusual" prepositions, which exist in vast amounts in bureaucratic style, as a rule take the genitive. The nascent preposition Richtung (lit. "direction", as in ich fahre (in) Richtung München, I'm driving in the direction of Munich) takes the accusative.

Modal particles[edit]

Sentences[edit]

German sentence structure is similar to other Germanic languages in its use of V2 word order.

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

^ Durrell & Hammer 2002, pp. 1–10.
^ Marian, Jakub. "How to recognize gender in German using suffixes". www.jakubmarian.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
^ Schmitz, Michael; M. A., Turkology Humanities (2020-02-27). "German Prepositions That Take the Accusative Case". www.thoughtco.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
^ Bauer, Ingrid; B. A., German and French (2020-02-27). "How to Use German Dative Prepositions". www.thoughtco.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
^ Schmitz, Michael; M. A., Turkology Humanities (2020-02-27). "Learn About Prepositions That Take the Genitive Case in German". www.thoughtco.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.

Bibliography[edit]

Durrell, Martin; Hammer, A.E. (2002). Hammer's German Grammar and Usage (Fourth ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-139654-7.
Hawkins, John A. (2015-07-03). A Comparative Typology of English and German: Unifying the Contrasts. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-41972-3.
Wietusch, Gudrun (2006). Grundkurs Grammatik. Cornelsen. ISBN 978-3-464-61805-9
Pahlow, Heike (2010). Deutsche Grammatik - einfach, kompakt und übersichtlich. Engelsdorfer Verlag, Leipzig. ISBN 978-3-86268-012-2

External links[edit]

Deutsch-ueben tk blog – German Grammar exercises for all levels with explanations in German.
German Grammar – Toms Deutschseite – German grammar explained by a native speaker (in English)
German Grammar Lessons – German grammar lessons along with exercises
Lingolia German Grammar – German Grammar explanations with exercises
German grammar overview German grammar (in English) (+ multiple choice test) explained by a native speaker.

[FOOTNOTEDurrellHammer20021–10-1] Durrell & Hammer 2002, pp. 1–10.

[2] Marian, Jakub. "How to recognize gender in German using suffixes". www.jakubmarian.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.

[3] Schmitz, Michael; M. A., Turkology Humanities (2020-02-27). "German Prepositions That Take the Accusative Case". www.thoughtco.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.

[4] Bauer, Ingrid; B. A., German and French (2020-02-27). "How to Use German Dative Prepositions". www.thoughtco.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.

[5] Schmitz, Michael; M. A., Turkology Humanities (2020-02-27). "Learn About Prepositions That Take the Genitive Case in German". www.thoughtco.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.

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